Port Phillip Habitat Map – Habitat Complex Modelling (CBiCS Level 3)

Summary

Habitat maps represent communities of marine species across Port Phillip Bay. They are developed from observation records and environmental variables by applying machine learning methods to build predictive models that estimate their distribution. Habitat maps support the monitoring and management of marine biodiversity and health in the region.

The Port Phillip Bay habitat map uses the Combined Biotope Classification Scheme (CBiCS) as developed and described by Edmunds and Flynn (2015, 2018) and Edmunds et. al 2021. CBiCS has six, hierarchical classification components; Level 1 – Environment, Level 2 – Broad Habitat, Level 3 – Habitat Complex, Level 4 – Biotope Complex, Level 5 – Biotope, Level 6 – Sub-biotope. The hierarchical design is adopted directly from the United Kingdom’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) scheme that is a proven system for classification. With some conversion, many of the actual classes from the JNCC scheme that are mapped in Europe (e.g., seaweed biotopes, mussel, worm, and other biogenic reefs) were imported directly into the Australian context (Edmunds et al. 2021). This scheme also aligns with the terrestrial Ecological Vegetation Class (EVC) system for recording mangrove and saltmarsh biotopes.